


Through Soul

by theobligatedklutz



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Blood and Injury, Boys In Love, Character Death, M/M, Songwriting, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29838990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theobligatedklutz/pseuds/theobligatedklutz
Summary: Based on secretly-of-course'spostWillie passes through Alex in 1993. Alexfeelsit.or a soulmate (ISH– emphasis on the ish because I never outright say 'soulmate') au where you feel it all come together when your loml touches you.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 104





	Through Soul

It's this weird sensation he feels when he's out on Sunset Boulevard with Luke, Reggie and Bobby. It's sudden and inexplicably jarring and it starts at his chest. The world feels more vibrant, saturated abruptly and for a moment, he can hear everything: from the click of heels down the street to the strum of a busker's guitar in the corner. He blinks and physically senses the bloom of warmth in his ribcage, spreading up to his head and down his body to the tips of his toes.

A weight lifts itself off of his shoulders and his fingers tingle like they've been singed by the heat of a fire. But what catches him off guard the most is the way his heart stumbles out a half-beat in sync with his breathlessness

"Dude, you good?"

It's Luke's voice and there's a hand wrapping around his shoulder, trying to shake him out of his stupor but he can't answer. He can't figure it out. Not when his vision is hyperfocused on the air around him and the world blurs everywhere else. How do you tell your friends that you just felt something fix itself inside your soul? Like the click of two puzzle pieces or the feeling you get when your favourite song finally comes on the radio. Like the heat of the sun through a window, not quite direct, just soft and warm and floaty. Like the wooden clacks of drumsticks coming together and the feeling of a cool breeze against the back of your neck on a stiflingly hot day. How does he describe that to his friends without sounding like a total weirdo?

So justifiable, he lies. Because it's impossible to describe the sensation he just went through. He can try to put it into words but he just wouldn't do it justice. That doesn't stop him from scribbling down the beginnings of a song on a loose sheet of paper during History. Lyrics about running away with the whirr of wheels under him (he doesn't even bike? rollerblade? skate??) and the feeling of floating like wisps of brown hair in the wind and the crinkles of eyes with a full body laugh. And what he can't see, he hears. The clinking of a key, the sound of coming home. He writes it all down in sloppy half-written sentences. A draft. Not quite there yet but the initial search of what this is, _who this is?_

If he clenches his eyes tightly enough, he can see the blob of the person(?) he's describing. Whoever they are, they have a killer smile. And they are drop-dead gorgeous and Alex wants to know them so badly, it hurts physically. Right there in the centre of his chest.

He gets it out of his system, he thinks. He is pretty sure he has because he forgets about it, them. The feeling.

He doesn't forget about it. That's the lie he tells himself so he doesn't look obsessive. 

Every night he finds himself adding to the song. Luke might be the songwriter and Alex has never had the desire to write or even has the lyrical intellect that Luke and Reggie have but all of a sudden, it feels like second nature to him. Writing this song feels like he can breathe again, like he's never breathed before this.

He can't get it out of his head. Them, the person, the need to find his spark again out of his head. It's all he can think about aside from the big Orpheum gig.

He folds the sheet of paper again and again until it's a little tightly wounded square and then he tucks it into his denim jacket for "safekeeping", to maybe show Luke later. Maybe they can figure it out together.

It doesn't happen. He never shows Luke. He doesn't want to share this feeling with anyone. He feels selfish but he doesn't mind. Because everytime his fingers brush against the folded song, his heart soars and a calm washes over him like the collapse of beach waves at the shore down at the beach. He can't help but be selfish because this feeling is too good for him to even give a morsel of it to anyone else.

And for a while, it becomes his will to live. Another day of surviving just so he can mouth the lyrics of the song and add another if he finds another piece of the entity behind his eyes.

Then he dies. 

Forgets about the song. The person. The sensation. 

Instead he remembers the clenching, rolling pain in his stomach and the blood pooling in his mouth. _Poisoning_. He remembers the unsettling feeling of black edging his vision and then, the regret of not doing enough and the fear of Hell. Then, death. Floating away from the ambulance, towards a star sketched sky. A dark room. Crying. Loneliness even with his two best friends right there with him. 

Then he's back. Pops back into the hollowed ghost of his existence 25 years later, in the year 2020.

Everything turns confusing so quickly. _Why can he be seen when he plays music with a girl he met two days ago? What are the rules of existing as a ghost and what happens if he breaks any of them? Is this natural? Why are they here and what does it all mean???_

He pushes his hands into the pocket of his distressed denim jacket in his panic and feels the jab of a papered corner against his fingers. _The Song._

The sensation of finding something he didn't know he had lost comes back full force. It's the sun on his face again, flushing him red and pretty brown eyes and the thousand watt smile.

But then, the feeling turns more than just warm and airy, it gets aggressive, like it wants to be known. Like it wants to stop hiding from Alex. He doesn't expect that to feel like he's been hit with a truck until something smacks him over on Sunset Boulevard (again). It doesn't go through him like it did that day when he first felt it. It hits him hard, a sharp pale green spark reverberating through the air between him and the feeling. 

The sun shines brighter through the window, giving everything a sheen of golden glow. His favourite song plays on a loop on the radio and the stifling hot day sees the first droplets of rain, sending a shiver down his neck. And the puzzle pieces mesh together to make a whole picture. 

He opens his eyes and the world tilts on its axis, everything slows down and if he had a heart, it would've ran off for what's– who's – in front of him because the feeling is a boy. The unfocused fuzz is a boy with the same sun brown hair fluttering when he takes off his helmet and curious scotch eyes and the clinking key around his neck Alex has seen in daydreams and sleeps and behind his eyes even when he's fully awake.

The sensation is a boy and his name is Willie and Alex feels like his world is complete.

He doesn't understand. Doesn't understand how he already knew of a boy 27 years before their meeting but none of those questions leave his mouth because Willie is laughing, his whole chest moving with the giggle and Alex can no longer comprehend the simplest things. All that's there in his sight and mind is the soft sweet skaterboy that just pancaked him into the ground.

And without ever having known him prior to this, Alex has written Willie a song that burns a hole in his pocket.

The lyriced sheet of paper waits its turn in Alex's pocket, waits to be put to the beat of drums and a voice and waits to be known by the boy who fills its faded blue lines.

Willie fills more than just the paper. He fills Alex's heart and soul, has built a house there, continues to spread his vines everywhere he touches.

All because he passed through Alex in 1993.


End file.
